The Screwed-Up Life of Charlie the Second

by Drew Ferguson

  When Rob grabbed some sheet music, I got worried that he thought I was serious about practicing. Rob winked at me. “For cover,” he said, smiling ear-to-ear. Once we were in a practice room, Rob dropped the music, grabbed my ears, pulled my face to his, and kissed me. I guess jug ears aren’t so bad when a cute boy’s using them for handles.

  “Hi, boyfriend,” he said as he broke away. We’d been frenching for so long my jaw was numb. He stroked my hair and cupped my face in his hands. He smelled like Polo—the real stuff.

  “Hi,” I whispered into his mouth. Rob lay on his side and I got next to him and closed my eyes. We made out—light, quick kisses on each other’s ears, lips, eyes, hair, and noses (he half-nipped, half-sucked mine, which sounds weird, but felt way cool). We were both in shorts. Today’s high was supposed to hit, like, 87 degrees and we kept rubbing our bare legs together like crickets.

  I didn’t think anything could feel better and then Rob rolled on top of me, his legs at my sides. He pulled my shorts past my hips and snaked his hand into my underwear. He eased the waistband down, trapping it under my balls. I squirmed and tried to flip to my stomach, worried that when Rob saw how small my dick was, he’d make fun of me. Thank God, I was hard. I didn’t look like a total inchworm. Rob stroked me slowly—his hand was warm—and massaged a pearl of pre-come from the tip of my dick. I shivered goose bumps from my toes to my shoulders. Rob leaned in to kiss me and I got nervous. Sure, I’d been wanting to do this since, like, forever, but I was scared. What if I screwed up and he found out I was a virgin? I scooted back.

  “What?” he asked, all blue eyes and concern.

  “I’m still a…I…I haven’t done anything like this.” My chest was pounding.

  “It’s okay,” he said, nuzzling his lips where my neck met the back of my ear. “We’ll go slowly.”

  I nodded. But then it dawned on me—I didn’t want to go slow. I wanted this—wanted Rob touching me. I tore off my shirt like it was on fire and yanked open Rob’s shorts.

  “Easy, pup,” Rob said, laughing and pulling his shirt over his head.

  I felt him—wow!—he had a big blue vein running along the shaft. It seemed bigger than it looked in the locker room shower. Really wide, too, with a big mushroom-shaped tip that wouldn’t fit through the center of a toilet paper roll. Okay, so I’ve tried with mine and I can. It’s not like I’m a horse. His pubes were really soft, too. The best part was him smiling and saying it was really cool that I was so excited.

  Side by side, we jacked each other off, watching what made the other feel good. Sometimes, he’d buck his hips, pumping his dick in my hand. Other times, he’d gasp, sucking air through his teeth. Right before he shot, his lips got all red and he pulled my face against his pecs so my mouth was over his nipple. He begged me to suck it, which seemed weird, ’cuz I didn’t think guys could be sensitive there. I flicked it with my tongue and it got hard and pointy. He told me to bite it and when I did, Rob arched onto the balls of his feet. He was almost hyperventilating, but I kept stroking. He gushed, spilling over my knuckles and into his pubic hair.

  Even while he was coming, Rob didn’t stop pumping me. When I was about to pop, Rob did something I didn’t expect. He swung around, facing me, and sucked the index finger of his free hand. Cradling my legs in the crook of his arms, he slipped a finger inside me. My butt grabbed Rob’s finger with the strength of a baby’s grip and I shot everywhere. He collapsed on top of me, both of us slick with sweat and come. Rob kissed me real softly and stuff.

  I wiped what I could from my chin and chest, rubbed it on the carpet, and searched the room for something better to mop up with.

  “Here,” Rob said. He grabbed his socks, wiped his chest, and then tossed his socks to me. “Who’s gonna know?”

  We’d just finished drying off and getting dressed when there was a knock on the door. The substitute teacher poked her head inside and wanted to know why we weren’t singing.

  “Breathing exercises,” Rob said. I tried not to crack up.

  She looked at him and scowled. “In your bare feet?” Rob nodded. “Then how come you’re in your shoes and socks?” she asked.

  “Because he’s a baritone and it’s easier to hit the low notes barefoot.”

  “Well, get your shoes and socks back on,” she told Rob, clucking her tongue. “The period’s almost over.”

  Rob looked at me, making a sure-it’s-kinda-gross-but-watcha-gonna-do shrug, and pulled them on. I felt bad for him, but at least it wasn’t me. The bell rang and we ran out of the practice room, snickering.

  I didn’t see Rob again until seventh-hour passing period. He smiled, pulled me against a wall, and then glanced at his feet. He was still wearing the socks. I shook my head and smiled.

  “Next time, pup, you’re cleaning up your own mess,” he said. He pinched my butt as we passed and I sooo got hard.

  And just when I thought the day couldn’t get better, it did. In seventh hour, Kyle got busted.

  I don’t know how Mr. Binkmeyer does it. If I was him, and I had to deal with Kyle, Joan, and me in class, I’d’ve skipped flatworms altogether and started dissecting students. For some reason, Mr. B calls everyone by their last names when he’s in class, but gives you the first-name treatment if you are on the wrestling or girls’ softball team. As you’ll see here, class, it’s exactly as I suspected. Miss Hawkings is indeed an invertebrate, as noted by her complete and total lack of a spine. What’s that, Mr. Marshall? Your lab partner, Mr. Stewart, is also spineless? Well, I can’t say I’m shocked.

  Mr. B hadn’t finished setting a stainless steel tray with two flatworms on Joan’s table and she was already pushing it away.

  “No.” She shook her head and tucked her hands under her armpits. “I’m not killing anything.”

  “Well, Miss Hawkings,” Mr. B sighed. He slid the tray back to Joan. “You don’t have to. They died at dawn.” Mr. B’s hand flicked to his forehead in mock salute.

  “Dude, that’s awesome,” Weir said, slapping his lab table. “How’d ya do it?”

  “I shot them, Mr. Weir. With a very, very small pistol.”

  Before Kyle could ask, “Really?” Joan had started in on Mr. B again.

  “You killed them? Why?”

  “Because, Miss Hawkings, they knew too much.” Mr. B grinned like a B-movie villain and rubbed his hands together. “Ze flatworms today. Tomorrow, ze world. Muwahahahaha!” The class laughed. Joan glared at Mr. B.

  Normally, I’d’ve laughed, too, but it didn’t feel right. I could see Joan’s point. Sure, the flatworms were dead and all, but that didn’t make cutting them apart right. I mean, what was the point? So a bunch of high school dumbasses could see that the stupid things didn’t have bones? That was already in our textbooks.

  I raised my hand.

  “Yes, Mr. Stewart?”

  “Mr. B, do we really have to do this? It’s not like we’re gonna discover anything new about flatworms. It’s kinda inhumane, isn’t it?”

  Mr. B balled his hands into fists. “Mr. Stewart,” he said, “it’s not ‘kinda inhumane.’ It’s completely inhumane. Flatworms aren’t—gasp—human. Besides, Mr. Stewart, not everything worth knowing can be found between the covers of a book. I would have thought that you already learned that.”

  The rebellion was squashed and, like it or not, we were gonna dissect the damn bugs. Yeah, I know, they aren’t bugs. Big whoop.

  Kyle came up to Steve and me as we were cutting our worm open. He was holding his against the bulge in his crotch.

  “Jealous of it, Charlie? It’s bigger than yours.”

  “How would you know, Kyle?” Marshall asked, laughing. “Been checking him out?” Kyle’s eyes narrowed.

  “You’re a dead man, Marshall,” Kyle said. He flicked the worm at Steve. The worm smacked Steve’s cheek. “A dead man,” Kyle repeated, turning right into Mr. B, who was right behind him.

  “If you wanted to spend time cleaning my lab after school, Mr. Weir,” Mr. B sa
id, handing Kyle a pink detention slip, “you could have asked.”

  “But I’ll miss football practice!” Kyle protested.

  “Two fifty-five, be here. I’ll have a mop waiting.”

  Mr. B walked toward the blackboard and Kyle said, louder than he’d meant, “Goddamn Jew.”

  The class got so quiet I could hear the lab’s fluorescent lights humming. Mr. B stepped toward Kyle, looking like he wanted to squeeze Kyle’s head like a zit. Kyle scurried backward, slamming into a chair and scraping its metal legs across the linoleum. He was shaking so badly I expected to see piss gushing down his pant leg. Mr. B reached forward and Kyle winced.

  Mr. B took in the classroom with his eyes. “Seats. Now.” We couldn’t move fast enough. Kids were practically crawling over each other. Kyle stood there, his lower lip quivering. Mr. B pushed up his shirtsleeves, and said, “Mr. Weir, follow me.”

  They left, Kyle blathering about how sorry he was, how his parents were gonna kill him, how he didn’t mean it. Mr. B wasn’t a Jew; well, he was—just not a goddamned one. “He’s sooo dead,” someone said as Mrs. Dover, an earth science teacher, walked into the classroom and told us to shut up and read chapter three in our texts. Nobody saw Kyle or Mr. B for the rest of the day.

  As soon as I got home tonight, I called Bink to find out what happened. Principal Michael called in Weir’s parents and Kyle supposedly bawled through the whole meeting. Principal Michael pushed for an expulsion, not caring if that meant Kyle couldn’t get into a decent college. He didn’t want filth like Kyle at his school. According to Bink, Mr. Weir said he understood, but there were better ways of punishing Kyle: Kyle takes a three-day suspension, he’s off the football team, he has to write a 30-page paper on the Holocaust to be graded by Mr. B and Principal Michael, and for the rest of the semester, he’s gotta wear a yarmulke and Star of David pinned to his chest. If he takes them off or causes any problems, he’s expelled.

  Bink’s pissed about it, though. Not ’cuz Kyle’s off the team—C’mon, Charlie, it’s not like it’d make any difference, we’ll still lose—but because it’s Bink’s yarmulke Kyle’ll be wearing.

  I can’t stop thinking about the choir practice room. Wouldn’t it be awesome if Rob and I went all the way?

  Thursday, September 6

  Everybody at school’s heard about Kyle. All day, people’ve been asking Bink how to say “asshole,” “dickweed,” and “go fuck yourself” in Hebrew and Yiddish. At first, it pissed Bink off, ’cuz when Andy Moore wanted to know the Hebrew for “tampon,” Bink sent him scurrying off, shouting, “What do I look like, a rabbi?” But by lunch, Bink was really getting into it, even though he admitted he was just making stuff up.

  “I can’t believe it. I just told someone that l’chaim is ‘blow me’ in Yiddish.”

  After practice today, Rob and I drove to Mister A’s on Dole Avenue. It’s a total pit, the kind of place that puts its hamburger patties in the deep fryer before slapping ’em on the grill, but it’s got great Italian beef and really good cheese fries. I got a beef with cheese, sweet and hot, no dip, an order of fries, and a lemonade. Rob ordered two hot dogs with everything, a diet Coke, a cup of coffee with cream and sugar, and a glass of water.

  “What?” he asked. “I like being hydrated.”

  I had him get the napkins and straws and grab a picnic table outside. I waited for our order, watching him through the window. He was using the picnic table like a keyboard, fingers banging out something that looked really complicated. It was cute.

  “These are hot dogs?” Rob asked as I handed him his plastic basket.

  I nodded, swallowing a bite of my beef and wiping my mouth. “Chicago-style, with mustard, onions, relish, pickle, tomato slices, hot pepper, and celery salt.”

  “No lettuce?” Rob grinned, struggling to take a bite.

  “Where would it fit?”

  “Dork.” He kicked my shoe. I kicked his back.

  When we were done, Rob leaned across the table with a napkin to dab something from my face. I freaked a little. He stopped.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, “it’s just—”

  “You weren’t kidding yesterday. You’ve never been with a guy.” His eyes were wide. I shook my head. “Seriously?”

  “Yeah.” He squeezed my knee under the table. “I don’t know crap about sex,” I said. “You’re the first guy I’ve ever, you know…But you’ve done stuff, right?”

  “Yeah.” Rob lowered his eyes.

  “So, what’d you do with that guy from your old school? Blow jobs?” I asked, way too eagerly. Rob chuckled.

  “You’re a total horndog.”

  “You did, didn’t you?”

  He threw a crumpled napkin at me.

  “What else? Like up the butt?”

  Rob flashed a smile and said we should get going.

  Back in Rob’s room, he made me strip to my underwear. He did the same. He said he wanted to try something he’d never done with another guy.

  “Lie down here,” he said, pulling his desk chair toward him. “Face down and close your eyes.”

  I got on the bed with my arms at my sides and scooched to the edge. Rob sat next to me and smoothed his hand over my eyes. “No peeking.” I heard him stretch, and then his fingertips tickled my back—quick flicks along my spine. His hands moved fast. I wriggled and tried not to get a woodie.

  “Ticklish much?” Rob laughed.

  “What are you doing?” I clenched my eyes and grabbed the bedsheets.

  “Teaching you classical music,” Rob said. “Guess what I’m playing.”

  “‘Chopsticks’?”

  “No. ‘Flight of the Bumblebee.’ Rimsky-Korsakov.” He hummed the notes his fingers would’ve made on the keyboard. “Okay, now guess what this is.”

  His hands moved slowly. It seemed like they were playing different songs, the right making all these flourishes between my shoulder blades, the left tapping the small of my back. I practically melted into the mattress. It took a while before I realized it wasn’t two songs. It was point and counterpoint.

  “That’s Bach. Part of the Goldberg Variations,” whispered Rob.

  “Then what’s Mozart feel like?” I rolled my head to the side and opened my eyes. Rob was smiling.

  “Hey, pup, who’s doing the teaching here?” He rubbed my hair. “Okay, even though Mozart’s super-famous now, he still had competition.”

  “Yeah? Like in the movie Amadeus?”

  “Well, that was Salieri. Salieri’s better known for operas, not piano stuff. The guy who gave Mozart a run for his money on the piano was a different Italian—Clementi.

  “Some emperor guy threw this big Christmas party. To show off for all his friends, he had Clementi and Mozart compete in a musical duel. Clementi played this sonata.”

  Rob’s fingers dashed across my back and I squirmed from under him, laughing and tucking my knees into my stomach.

  “Get back here,” Rob said as I rolled to the edge of the bed. “After Clementi was done, Mozart improvised something and then did a set of variations. The emperor called it a tie. Since what Mozart did wasn’t written down, I’ll just do Mozart’s eleventh piano sonata.”

  He did, then he played Beethoven, then a guy named Liszt whose music gets used a lot in Bugs Bunny cartoons, then some Russians like Rachmaninoff, and then someone who composed a piece for just the left hand. Then he got to the Americans—ragtime and jazz. Rob said Scott Joplin, the guy who wrote “The Entertainer,” stole stuff from French composers, but twisted it all up. His favorite American composer was Zez Confrey, some guy from here in Illinois who played a song called “Kitten on the Keys” at Gershwin’s debut of Rhapsody in Blue. The way Rob’s hands pounced on my back, it was easy to see how it got its name. According to Rob, Confrey was big into making music for piano rolls—compositions that would take at least two people to perform them live.

  Rob would’ve kept talking, too, but I pulled him out of the chair and onto the bed. We started making ou
t. We probably would’ve gotten off if his Dad hadn’t called upstairs, saying it was dinnertime and asked Rob if I was staying.

  I just got off the phone with Bink. He was all panicked because homecoming’s almost a week away and he still hasn’t called the florist to order Dana’s corsage.

  “Just get her something edible. Hay would be good. You’ll save money on dinner,” I told him while we were on the phone.

  “I should have known you wouldn’t be any help,” Bink said.

  “Okay, Bink. I’ll be serious. What color is her dress?”

  “That’s just it, Charlie. I don’t know. She said something about it being moth. What the hell color is ‘moth’? What do I look like, a box of crayons?”

  “She must’ve told you mauve,” I said.

  “Mauve? That’s not a real color. That sounds like a skin condition.”

  “Bink, mauve’s a color. Just think of it as purple on an iron-poor diet. Lavender-ish.”

  “Mauve. Lavender-ish. I swear, you better not be making this crap up.” I laughed, but Bink didn’t think it was funny. “Listen, Charlie, you’ve got it so much easier. You can stop in a 7-Eleven, buy Rob a carnation and be done with it. Some of us actually have to think. Talk to you later.”

  I hadn’t thought about Rob and homecoming. Should I ask him? Who’m I kidding? Guys don’t ask each other to dances. Well, not at South, anyway. But what if Rob doesn’t know that?

  What if he asks me instead?

  Friday, September 7

  We won our soccer game tonight, but I didn’t get to hang out with Rob afterward. He had to take care of his mom, ’cuz, I guess, his dad had to go into the city for work. It’s just as well. First was waiting after the game. More driving lessons. No, your other right, Einstein. That stop sign wasn’t put there for a decoration. Just because they’re called bumpers doesn’t mean you have to test them against everything.